What Kind of Stories Does The Wellesley News Cover?

The Wellesley News is the student newspaper of Wellesley College, published since 1901. Its coverage is organized around four main sections — News & Investigations, Opinions, Arts & Culture, and Features — and it reports primarily on campus life, college policy, student experience, and cultural commentary. If you want to know what the paper actually publishes, the section structure below is the fastest guide.

News & Investigations

This section carries reported pieces on college administration, policy changes, and campus events, often with named student bylines and dates.

Examples from the paper's own front page include:

• Work authorization policy — Wellesley paused Curricular Practical Training (CPT) authorization indefinitely for international students on F-1 visas, per a Sept. 28 letter from President Paula Johnson. The News granted anonymity to international students to protect them from potential immigration-related repercussions.
• Visa and arrival delays — international students arriving three weeks late due to visa policy changes.
• Rankings — Wellesley falling to its lowest U.S. News ranking in school history.
• Campus environment — invasive lanternflies appearing across campus; Green Hall reopening after a year-long closure.
• Student government and funding — pieces such as "SOFC: Reasonable or rigid?"

The distinguishing feature of this section is that it covers institutional decisions and their direct effects on students, sometimes using anonymous sourcing when students face possible consequences.

Opinions

Signed commentary and argument, usually by contributing writers and columnists. Topics mix campus criticism with broader cultural debate. Examples include "Woke for what?", "Wellesley's environmental hypocrisy," and "A higher threshold and broader question of affordability."

Arts & Culture

Reviews, music and media commentary, and event coverage. Examples include a review of HEARTSTEEL's "Live My Life," a piece on the band Residents, and coverage of the Wellesley Concert Series ("Images of Brazil").

Features

Longer-form student-centered storytelling, often about identity, community, and campus life. Examples include "The end of a home at Wellesley," an archive feature on Flower Sunday stories, "Creating community through creativity," and first-person pieces such as two trans students discussing a Title IX complaint against Wellesley, and commentary on Clancy through the lens of women's health.

How to Tell Which Section a Story Belongs To

Practical Notes for Readers

• Bylines and dates matter. Stories list the writer and publication date, which helps when tracking how a policy story develops over weeks.
• Anonymous sourcing appears in sensitive stories. The CPT story is an example: anonymity was granted specifically because of potential immigration consequences, so treat those quotes as protected rather than casually attributed.
• The paper is student-run and campus-focused. It is not a general news outlet; expect Wellesley College and its surrounding community to be the center of coverage.

If your question is narrower — for example, whether it covers a specific department, sport, or administrative office — the section list above is the best filter, since the paper's own front page shows coverage clustering around those four categories rather than a fixed beat structure.